Anatomy of Grace 1 – Don’t miss it.

As I promised, I want to share with you some of the lessons I'm learning in this season of pain. I do this only to help anyone who may be experiencing things like this. Forgive me. What is in my heart is too long to put into one post, so I am putting it into several posts numbered if you're interested in following.

Grace…the kind that we are extended, not the way we move or dress. This is the Grace that you have extended to you by God, which in turn means it's the same kind of Grace you need to offer to others. Grace biblically is filled with many twists and turns. 

It's not sugarcoated candy that includes nothing terrible tasting. Instead, God's Grace consists of some disturbing things that lead to more extraordinary things. Case in point - the Grace of God to each of us for salvation came through the harrowing experience of God sacrificing Himself as the Godman Jesus Christ. 

The list includes: Enduring incredible pressure and stress to the point of sweating blood, being abandoned and betrayed.  Then tortured very painfully to death, only to raise Himself from the dead, take His sacrifice He alone purchased for us, offer it at the throne of the Father. And then offer it to us to pay for our sins. 

This salvation provides us with a relationship with the living God that guarantees an eternal destination that is "beyond what we could think or imagine" ( 1 Cor. 2:6–9, 2 Cor. 4:16–18) and produce a new nature in our fallen body that can continue to grow in maturity and the image of God, Himself! That is the ultimate Grace, yet we seem to only gravitate to the "destination" part of this tremendous work. This causes us to miss the practical Grace that we are invited into participating with God the Holy Spirit. Our free choice continues after the redemption of our soul. The theological term would be "regeneration." An act where the Holy Spirit places into us a new nature, which Dwight Pentecost describes with excellence in his book, "Designed to be like Him."

In that description, we see how our Mind, Heart and Will were affected by the disease of sin nature. From there, our journey takes us through the design of the new Mind, the new Heart, and the new Will.  There is a constant everyday Grace that God gives His children to teach them how to negotiate with the Holy Spirit how to remain in the new nature.  It works much in the same way as a tug of war! As described in Romans and Galatians, we have two power plugs to carry power that will generate how we behave to circumstances. One plug goes to the sin nature we have, the other to the regenerated nature we possess since trusting in Christ. Our free choice decides which power source to plug into, determining which direction the "rope" is pulling us in! If we unplug from our sin nature and plug into the "new man" (καινός kainós, ἄνθρωπος ánthrōpos Eph 4:24), we will process life with our New Mind, Heart and Will. This will enable us to: "know God (mind), Love God (heart), and obey God (will).  

Sadly many of us miss this season of Grace that is only possible to experience while living in our fallen bodies. We are so focused on the "heaven" destination that we do not embrace the Grace that God gives when we deal with incredible highs and incredible lows! As a result, we lose the growth and the sense of achievement that comes from working in concert with the Holy Spirit. Also, the opportunity to invest "here & now" to receive eternal rewards that do not end when our bodies do! But, most importantly, the experience of seeing fellow humans that are in darkness, like we were, come into the joy of the Light! I know I have high times and low times, and it often takes some time to process and see all that God in His goodness and love intends for me. 

The So What: Stop! Take a moment to reassess your life. How would you describe the season you are in?  How do you feel toward God about that? What do you think He wants you to do? In your words, avoid the platitudes. Are you praying to Him and seeking His mind, or just complaining?